Moore: Gamers "understand" Online Pass

EA Sports president Peter Moore believes that gamers "recognise the business model implications of new versus used" game sales, and consequently appreciate the logic behind the publisher's "Online Pass" system.

"Whilst I'm not sure they're angry, they absolutely look at what's going on in the marketplace and understand totally what it is we're doing," Moore told Kotaku.

The idea with Online Pass is that consumers redeem a free code supplied with a new game in order to unlock the multiplayer component. Second-hand buyers can pay $10 via PlayStation Network or Xbox Live for equivalent access.

Rather than focus on this apparent attempt to devalue second-hand copies of games, however, Moore said it was about discouraging you from selling by subliminally encouraging you to try multiplayer when you might have ignored it in the past.

"One thing I have to do, and it's my job, and my development team's job, and my marketing team's job, is make you not want to trade the game in," he explained.

"From our perspective, [it's] conditioning you to punch a code in, to get you going, get some digital content, and conditioning you to look at digital content as a value-add to the game experience itself."

Online Pass will be implemented in all EA Sports titles on PS3 and Xbox 360 in future, beginning with Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11, which is due out in Europe this Friday.